Cubs, Games 3 & 4

Well, year in and year out some things never change. The Cubs will alternate between making me want to throw up and jump for joy. Four games into the season and not much has changed from past years.

Game 3 -- Matt Garza makes his first official start as a Chicago Cub.  Coming over in the off season to help bolster the front of the rotation Garza pitched a very good game. When you give up 12 hits it also helps if you get a ton of strike outs...and Garza did just that. A career high 12 K's to be exact. Leaving with the lead he turned things over to the bullpen. Which, in years past, has been a good thing. With Kerry Wood, Sean Marshall and Carlos Marmol things should have been locked down. Marmol was lights out the night before....sadly this ending wasn't the same. Carlos couldn't find a groove and the Pirates were allowed to come back and take the swing game of the 3 game set, dropping the Cubs to 1-2 on the season. But, there are more games to play so why dwell on this one?

Game 4 -- What's the best way to kick the bad taste of a losing series to the Pirates to the curb? Follow it up with a series against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Now, there is no way the D-backs can be as bad as they were last year. But, that doesn't mean they are going to be good either.  For the 4th game of the season the Cubs starter put in quality work with Randy Wells striking out 6 through 6 innings. His only mistake was a lead off home run to the games first batter. The Cubs would come back with one run in the bottom of the 3rd and 4th innings and added two insurance runs in the bottom of the 8th and Marmol came in and shut things down for his second save in three appearances this season.

Four games in and we've gone L-W-L-W....but we still have two more games with the D-Backs. So, fingers crossed that we get out of this with a string of W's and some momentum heading into this weekends series with the Brewers.